Disinfection Technology/Methods for Computer Equipment?

smammon asks: "I manage the IT department for a pretty average hospital. Our equipment is used everywhere, including the patient rooms, operating suites, and hallways. We expect it to move into more areas (hands) in the future with advent of more and more wireless/handheld technology. Our problem is that even with constant employee education and regular maintenance/cleaning efforts on our part - it is still very common for equipment to become contaminated with all manner of nasty goo. We have been looking for a method of disinfection that kills the bugs without killing the equipment. So far the only reasonably good looking alternative is vaporized hydrogen peroxide. Problem is that it's not known to positively kill the kind of tough bug that lives on surfaces. Anyone know of, developing, or selling a method for disinfection of sensitive equipment? Any innovative solutions from the geek collective?"

Comments

Re:Hulk jokes aside...

[crmartin]

Sadly, if there's anything like a PLA or EEPROM inside, you're hosed. I went through this for just *months* some time ago, when trying to figure out why a simple little box would work in the lab at my company, but not in the field. The answer was that the box was getting x-rayed in transit, causing the EEPROM to get random extra bits....

Real Problem is several problems

[MountainLogic]

You need to both kill bugs AND remove the goo. The standard way to quash the bugs is either heat, radiation or chemical. With Ethylene Oxide (these links too) being common for many medical devices.

You need to select devices that can be hosed down. That means comercial devices that almost meet NEMA 4. The only way to get rid of goo is soap and water. Retail devies are just not ment for a medical environment. And you must get rid of the goo BEFORE you sterilize. That goo can carry pirons (sp?) even after EtO so plan for soap and water. There are sources of ruggedized tools such as Symbol Technologies. You are going to pay more, but you have a responsability to do it right.

Go to a medical or engineering school and ask for their Bioengineering department and ask for help. This is way over the head of /.

Re:Real Problem is several problems

[Anonymous Coward]

"this is way over the head of slashdot"...

Agreed! When I worked in a hospital environment, EVERY piece of electronic equipment had to get the stamp of approval from the Medical Engineering Department. I once brought an "unauthorized" answering machine into my office and it ended up disappearing and getting stamped and stickered as having been approved and inspected by medical engineering. I don't know if they really tested it for anything, but in the medical world, litigation and malpractice are overly prevalent.
Another problem with hospital environments is that there is CRITICAL equipment in there, esp. in the ICUs and CCUs and the ORs (intensive care, cardiac care, operating rooms, and neonatal ICUs), and you DO NOT want radio interference to cause any problems with measurement, data transmission (some EKG machines transmit data over radio waves to the nurses station) or their activities (ventilators and infusion pumps operating exactly as intended can be the difference between life and death.)
There are often notices outside the ORs and ICUs saying nit to use cell phones in the area, and I dread thinking what an unintentional blue-tooth or 802.11[abg] device might do in an area that should not have any stray RF noise.
PDAs and handheld computers have their place, but if you're working in a hospital, you better be working closely with bioengineering, or there could be a lot of trouble in store.

Doctors are often the greatest violators of these restrictions, as they must often HAVE to have the latest and greatest toys and handhelds. But that's another long winded story.

from - been there and seen that (posting from lynx, so excuse any formatting errors)

Google??

[linuxwrangler]

I hate to use the so often used refrain in "ask Slashdot" questions but Try Google (tm).

The thing you are most concerned with is the input device - everything else can be in a sealed box so type into Google "industrial keyboards" and hunt to your heart's content.

You might, for example, discover on the first page of returns the MGR Keymate 2 which is "a sealed keyboard featuring a smooth membrane ideal for food and beverage and medical applications where wash down / sterilization is needed." (emphasis mine).

You may even discover that many of these keyboards are rated for use in explosive environments, say where you have things like ether, oxygen and alcohol though I can't possibly think of such a place at the moment.

custom enclouses/cases?

[BenTheDewpendent]

if you spend some extra dough on custom hermeticaly sealed carriers/cases/enclosuers for these devices, be it lexan, aluminum, staneless steel, plastic wrap etc. If you are using tablets and touch screen devices how about using the hardmaterial to cover the bulk of it and a removeable replaceable plastic covering for the screen section (like some cellphone cases). Once you get the equipment back you toss the screen protecor (depening on type) and remove the device from its hermeticaly sealed protecive home and set the device someplace safe and proceed to disinfect the rest in the appropriate manner.